Sunday, 17 April 2016

FLAT Young Dreads?

Young dreads being all like… flat?

So here’s a common concern: young dreadlocks being flat as… well, I want to say flat as a pancake, but that’s not really all that appropriate here because pancakes are… well. Anyway, if you’ve got young dreadlocks you may very well find that they’re a little more on the flat side than you’d hope and likely flattest at the back of your head.

Here’s the deal, young dreads are basically just loosely knotted lumps of hair. Some are going to be tighter than others, but until they’re mature they’re not really going to have that rope-like consistency yet. This means that when you squish them… like when you sleep on them, well then they’re gonna get flattened out. Same deal if you wear at hat or a helmet or, well, any other flattening… device(?).

So, flatness, normal, no big deal, but what can you do about it? Well in the same way that squashing them will flatten them, rolling them can round them back out again. It’s arguable whether palm rolling dreadlocks has a huge impact on the dreads long term, but short term it can definitely help round soft young dreads back out again… but they’ll flatten again when squashed.

As the dreadlocks get older they’ll get stronger, tighter, firmer - more rope-like basically and less squash-able. So while it can be kind of annoying to have them flattening out every night when they’re young, once they’ve reached maturity they’ll hold their shape much better.